Partial EMT Drives Persistent Collective Migration via Collision Guidance in Heterogeneous Populations

The epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) alters cell-cell interactions to facilitate collective or individual migration during embryonic development, wound repair, or tumor invasion. Epithelial cells are typically cohesive and stationary while mesenchymal cells are individually dispersed and motile. Additional “partial” EMT states are thought to occur with distinct adhesive and migratory behaviors, but these functional phenotypes are poorly understood. Here, we show that cells treated with moderate TGF- β concentration exhibit collective migration that is fast and directionally persistent despite heterogeneity in epithelial, partial, and mesenchymal states. We find cells coordinate their motility by reorienting in similar directions after transient contacts, a distinct “collision guidance” mechanism that differs from epithelial arrest or mesenchymal repulsion. Moreover, partial EMT cells sustain collision guidance when interacting with epithelial or mesenchymal cells, which otherwise have increased tendency to repel. We corroborate these experimental observations with a computational model using self-propelled interacting particles that align their motion or repel upon contact. Finally, we show that partial EMT enables tissue monolayer fronts to overwhelm and displace monolayers of other cell types after collision. Overall, these results reveal that partial EMT promotes coherent and emergent behaviors that bridge from cell to tissue length scales, with potential implications for shaping epithelial tissue formation, regeneration, or disorganization.